Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Floreio Workout Number 4

Friends,

First things first, We have a forum in action and people are posting already, go register - http://forum.idoportal.com/ Lots of material has been posted. (By me and others)

And now for buisness... This time we are going to start, after a warm up, with some Equilibre work.Equilibre (French for balance) is the art of handbalancing. I have studied this art over the last couple of years, from three different people: two good friends - Yuval Ayalon and Yuval Oz, who studied under French Equilibre master Claude Victoria, in addition to spending a week in France in the mountains training with the master himself. You can have a look at my old blog posts about my adventures in France, if you are interested: Here, here, here and here.We are going to do very basic handbalancing work. This is not Capoeira/floreio style handstands, and even with my Capoeira students I emphesize the need to learn the art of Equilibre in its pure form, as a crosstraining medium. Afterwards, when the base is solid, implementation work can be done into whatever field you may practice. I am a strong believer in crosstraining, as you may or not have noticed.

My students spend 50% of their handbalancing time with pointed toes, straight lower backs and looking at the floor in an effort to reach optimal technique and control, and 50% of their time implementing such work into their Floreio work - Head out, more relaxed bodies, different use of the feet, etc. If you are a Yoga practitioner and would like to take your handbalancing to the next level, I advice you to do the same. We are going to take the same proven aproach here in our Floreio trainings.

This drill is the most efficient use of your time at the start. Without too much explaining and detail, if you perform the drill correctly - you will be able to stay in Handstand, wrists VERY close to the wall (10 cm tops), if the line is not perfect, you wont be able to reach such a close position to the wall, and though, you get a self corrective practice.Basicly, stand with your back to a wall/stall bar. Put one leg after the other behind you and climb the wall slowly while moving the hands closer and closer to the wall. Try to reach the closest position you can to the wall, while flattening your lower back, extending your shoulders completely and contracting butt, abs and inner thighs. This will be extremely difficult for the ones of you with closed shoulders. Solving that problem is a big issue we will discuss in the future.Hold for X amount of sec. Climb down.Rest and repeat for the desired number of sets.

This drill is a bit more advanced and should be used by practitioners with some free balancing handstand ability.It will help you once again reach a better handstand line - slowly and while balancing on two hands.Kick into a handstand against the wall, with a bit of bent knees.Realign your upper body in preparation for the handstand, if done correctly, you will feel the feet pressing very light on the wall. (They are light? Lighter!)From there, while holding tension in butt, abs and inner thighs, straighten into the most straight handstand you can achieve with your current body build, shoulder flexibility, etc... (it may not be very straight right now, but aspire to the best body position. Film yourself!)Hold for time and come down. Repeat for the desired amount of sets.The handstand line is a life time project. Try to go for the best line you can achieve TODAY. With time, and correct Floreio mobility work it will improve.

Role is a very simple looking fluid motion. Beware of those simple motions! They always contain movement quality, control, fluidity and other traits that are more difficult to duplicate than pure strength, flexibility, etc...The Role starts at the squat. From there shift the weight towards one foot, place you hand beside that foot and open the opposite leg to the side, slide into a wide, low sweeping motion, putting most of your weight on your hands, and finish back in the squat on the other side. Before closing into the squat there is another 'open and close' of the outer leg - like in the start.Watch the clip. 10 times. 20. Try to see the dynamics, movement quality, ingrain the motion in your mind, and practice. Alot.This movement will be central in further Floreio development, as it allows to gather momentum into other movements, move from point A to B and more. Alsoit just has a beautiful sweeping dynamics to it.

Gatherings

Gatherings (this is a military term in Hebrew I use to describe various forces/troops comming together to one point on the map) are somewhat of a basic strength or strength endurance exercise with some lower back, shoulder and triceps components to it.The Gatherings Beginner variations are:1. From a squat, go into a frog stand, lower with control towards your head and come back for reps.2. Exactly like number 1 only when you reach with the head to the floor, extand into headstand.This will strengthen you and prepare you for the intermidiate variations. Practice it.

The Gatherings - Intermidiate Variations are:1. Stage A - From a headstand, bend knees and take your heels towards you butt. Stage B - bring knees into your chest. Stage C - Bring feet to touch the floor. Reverse the order and repeat for reps.2. The same like 1 only with straight legs the whole way. This is called Reverse Leg Lifts in Gymnastics circles. Very good antagonist work for high bridging - lower back gets a good stretch with each rep in a dynamic fashion similar to the counter stretch in Rotations Into High Bridge.

The Gatherings Advanced is:From a headstand complete the downward phase of Gatherings-Intermidiate variation 2 and from there, using the momentum created by the lifting legs, extand into a handstand. Come back down to head stand and repeat for reps. Of course you will need good freestanding Handstand ability to use this excelent exercise. Another good reason to work on your Equilibre skills.

D1. Role work + other Floreio movements you have down for 1 minute straight. Flow around the floor. Improvisation exercise.Rest for 1 min and complete 3 total sets

FLOREIO NEWS

1. Facebook us at user name 'Floreio Art'2. A website is under construction, soon the blog will be a part of a bigger website - articles, videos, forum, etc..3. Tomorrow, combination Floreio flows. Using our movements in sequences. Stay alert!4. Some more important mobility work will be shared.5. More surprises...

I have a question about the floor surface actually. Do you think its better to train capoeira/floreio on a hard surface like wood floor, tile, concrete, etc or a softer surface like a padded floor, grass, or a rug. Or do you think it doesnt really matter?

So, I did this workout and it was great . . . difficult by great. I think I am getting the hang of the Role (after a few very slow reps). I do have a question about the Gatherings. I can do the most advanced variation posted (pike to handstand push up) but the problem I am running into is going back down into the headstand. Using the momentum from the pike press I just pop right into the handstand but when I start going back down I get almost down (my head is about 1 inch from the floor) and I lose my balance and roll out of it or have to put my feet down. For this workout I got down correctly 2 times out of all of the sets and that was right at the beginning when I was fresh. When I roll out I immediately go back into a head stand and do another rep. Is it ok for me to do the reps like this until I get the hang of lowering myself back down, or should I isolate the lowering to a headstand and just work the regular reverse leg lifts?

Today a few people asked me questions at the gym about what I am doing and I gladly told them about Floreio and your site. Even noobs can spread the word!

Nifty, just spend some time doing the concentric part only. When you reach a handstand, come back down to your feet and return to headstand. Repeat. It will improve with time, this is a common problem.

Do you have any more workouts that works on the Equilibre skills other than this one? I don't mean the ones that have been shown and repeated din other workouts like the gathering variations and the handstand body line drill. Thanks